Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  Patch Up was no longer breathing.

  “Is he gonna make it?” Stevie asked from the fort. “He okay?”

  Unable to speak, the cowboy laid down the negro’s body, removed the iron tabard and hurled it, angrily, as far as he could. The metal plates reflected moonlight, clanged to the ground and scraped across the stone. Startled horses whickered.

  Brent hugged Patch Up to his chest.

  “Is he okay?” Dolores’s question echoed across the mountain wall.

  The cowboy put his arms underneath the dead man, raised him from the ground and walked up the log ramp, across grit, through the west door and into the fort. His siblings and the dandy turned their anxious faces toward him.

  “He’s gone.”

  “No!” Dolores yelled from her stool. “No!”

  The dandy slapped his palm against the stone wall. “Damnation!”

  Stevie discarded his rifle, ran across the enclosure and looked down at Patch Up. “I…I can’t believe it.” His eyes filled with moonlight. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think…I didn’t think that he’d ever…ever…” He was unable to complete his sentence.

  “Slide Pa over,” Brent said, “Patch Up wants to be next to him.”

  Stevie nodded and went to the funereal bunk, where he was joined by Nathaniel. The two men slid the patriarch against the north wall, and Brent laid Patch Up beside the huge body. Without a word or a glance at anyone, the dandy walked away from the deceased.

  Dolores gathered her crutches and hobbled beside her brothers.

  To his siblings, Brent said, “He wants it to go Patch Up Plugford—on the tombstone.”

  The redheaded woman patted the dead man’s hands. “It should.” Tears dripped from her chin. “That’s what he was.”

  Stevie began to sob.

  Brent hugged his little brother tightly to his chest. “He said he was gonna haunt you forever.”

  “I hope...I hope he does it.” Stevie withdrew, grinned sadly, wiped his eyes, sniffed and walked back toward his slit.

  The cowboy hugged his sister.

  “Brent?” asked Dolores.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re all gonna die out here, ain’t we?”

  Before Brent was able to reply, Long Clay said, “Deep Lakes is bringing the hostages.”

  “I’ll rip their hearts out!” proclaimed Stevie. “I’ll stomp their goddamn nuts and piss in—”

  “You will listen to me,” the gunfighter warned, “or you’ll get another mark on your tally.”

  Stevie grumbled.

  Brent helped Dolores back to her stool and returned to his position on the south wall. “Patch Up saw sixty others—not even includin’ the ones we put down.”

  Dolores and Stevie and the dandy were silent.

  “Sixty men,” restated Long Clay.

  “‘At least sixty’ were his words, exact precise,” clarified Brent.

  Long Clay announced, “We need to go all the way mean.”

  “Okay.”

  “My pleasure!” proclaimed the youngest Plugford. “The meaner the better!”

  “Stevie,” said Long Clay.

  “Yessir.”

  “Get a fire going in the potbelly stove.”

  “Yessir.”

  Stevie set his rifle upon its stock, leaned it to the wall and opened the tinderbox earlier placed beside the molten potbelly stove.

  The dandy stared at the gunfighter.

  “Mr. Stromler,” said Long Clay.

  “Yes.” Nathaniel’s voice was hard with contempt.

  “We’re outnumbered ten to one. Or perhaps the ratio is worse. We must be ruthless.”

  “Do you intend to torture people?”

  “If you can’t stomach mean business, you should leave. If you lodge one complaint, Stevie and Brent will throw you in the cell and lock the door until it’s all over. If you attempt to impede my tactics in any way, I will shoot you.”

  “Long Clay’s got the reins,” affirmed Stevie. “He’s the tactician.”

  The gunfighter eyed the dandy. “Will you follow my lead?”

  “I will.” Nathaniel turned away and faced his slit.

  “You’ve been warned.”

  “I have.”

  Long Clay looked meaningfully at Brent.

  To the wraith that offered his dark services, the cowboy nodded.

  The tall narrow man returned his gaze to his telescopic sight, and the moonlight captured within its lenses turned his right eye into an opalescent gem.

  Chapter II

  The End of Nathaniel Stromler

  A match scratched and hissed. White light flared in the southeastern corner of the enclosure, turned orange, shrank and became an amber rectangle that was the opening of a potbelly stove. Wood shavings curled with serpentine life and crackled like a phonographic cylinder or a bowl of scorpions.

  Nathaniel Stromler turned back to his west wall crenellation, looked outside and surveyed the cemetery in which tombstones and markers sprouted from the sere land like dull teeth. On the far side of the burial ground was the horse that carried the native, followed by a trio of steeds laden with blindfolded prisoners.

  “Deep Lakes is thirty yards from the door,” announced the gentleman.

  “Mind your words when the captives are in,” ordered Long Clay. “We don’t want them to know the size of our crew.”

  “Understood,” said Nathaniel.

  “Okay,” said the Plugfords.

  Forty minutes before the first shot was fired, Nathaniel had crouched in the latrine and forced the last prickly scorpion through his bowels. Everything in his life, all of his relationships and hopes and ideals, had yielded to the agony of the bleeding orifice. He was a sweaty, unintelligent animal that was in intense pain, nothing more and he doubted it would be much easier for him to witness other people reduced to the same bestial state.

  “Brent. Stromler,” said Long Clay. “Help Deep Lakes with the captives. Mind the blindfolds.”

  “Okay,” said the cowboy.

  The gentleman slung his weapon over his shoulder and found that his hands were shaking.

  “Leave your rifle here,” said Brent. “Their hands’re tied, but you don’t wanna risk one of them grabbin’ no gun.”

  Nathaniel set his rifle against the wall.

  Brent pulled open the door and exited the fort.

  The gentleman walked outside and felt the night—cool, vast and deadly—open up around his head. The halved moon was magnified by a thick gray cloudbank, upon which he saw an electric blue thread that was either distant lightning or a flaw in his retina.

  Five yards away, Deep Lakes reined his purloined colt to a halt, leaped from the saddle, slung his strange bow and walked to the trio of horses that he had trailed. He grabbed the ankles of two captives and pulled. The men thudded against the ground and were dragged toward the fort like sacks of bad potatoes that were about to be turned into fertilizer.

  Brent pointed to a redheaded man who wore a pinstriped brown suit and had arrows in his chest and right shoulder. “Grab that one.” Like all of the captives, the individual was blindfolded and had his wrists bound together.

  Nathaniel slid his arms underneath the injured man’s back, heaved him from the horse and grunted.

  “Draggin’ is easier,” remarked the cowboy.

  While carrying the redheaded man toward the fort, the feathers of embedded arrows waggled in front of the gentleman man’s nose and elicited a sneeze.

  Nathaniel entered the edifice and laid his burden upon the floor, beside a stout Mexican who had a boyish face and the triumphant individual who had exclaimed, “¡Triunfo!” in both Castillo Elegante and the crimson stagecoach. Brent indelicately dropped his capt
ive, a heavy fellow with a dark green suit and a thick handlebar mustache, next to the redheaded man, and Deep Lakes dragged the last hombre, who wore a black vaquero outfit decorated with silver fringes, across the stone until he laid alongside his peers. The amber glow of the potbelly stove shone obliquely upon the five bound and blindfolded men, only two of whom appeared to be conscious.

  It was clear to Nathaniel that he could not remain indoors while the torturous endeavors occurred. “I shall wait outside,” he said as he walked toward the west wall.

  “Stay here,” ordered Long Clay. “I need you to translate.”

  Nathaniel silently cursed.

  Brent closed the west door.

  To the brothers, the gunfighter said, “Watch the perimeters.”

  “Okay.” Brent and Stevie returned to their slits.

  Long Clay knelt beside the redheaded man and slapped his face.

  “Don’t!” protested the bound and blindfolded captive.

  “How many men are in your posse?”

  “A…a lot. We’ve got a big crew.” The man’s accent indicated that he was from the Midwest.

  Long Clay swatted the man’s throat. “Give me a number. If it doesn’t match what the other captives say, I’ll cut off your right hand.”

  The Midwesterner paled. “Uh…um…ninety, I believe.”

  A terrible dread flooded throughout Nathaniel’s body. For the second time in two days, he was hopeless.

  “Goddamn,” muttered Stevie.

  Dolores lowered her head, and Brent spat through his slit.

  “Some horses got sick after we went through your campsite,” the Midwesterner added, “and a few men too.”

  “Why’re you out here?” asked Long Clay.

  “I’m friends with Diego and Rosalinda. Was.”

  “Who’re they?”

  “Gris’s son and daughter-in-law. Good, kind people that you folks murdered when you robbed Catacumbas.”

  Irked, Brent spun around. “We didn’t rob that damn place or kill one woman.”

  “The pregnant woman,” the Midwesterner said, “the one that the tall man shot in the hand, she went into shock and bled to death. And her little baby died too.”

  Long Clay seemed unaffected by the news that he had killed a pregnant woman and her child. “Are you close with Gris’s family?”

  “I…I know them.” The Midwesterner’s voice was weak.

  The gunfighter looked at the cowboy. “This one goes on the wall.”

  At that moment, Nathaniel knew that Long Clay was the most immoral man he had ever known, and the single most odious individual on either side of this battle, including Gris himself.

  The gunfighter knelt beside the only other conscious man, the stout Mexican with the boyish face, and inquired, “Do you speak English?”

  “No Ingles.” The fellow seemed very proud of this fact. “Soy Mejicano verdadero.”

  Long Clay looked over at Nathaniel. “Ask him how he’s connected to Gris.”

  The gentleman restated the inquiry in Spanish.

  A moment later, the boyish Mexican replied.

  Nathaniel said, “He was hired by a third party to join the posse and does not personally know Gris.”

  “Perfect.” The gunfighter looked at the native. “Separate this one from the other four. He’s the messenger.”

  Deep Lakes grabbed the boyish Mexican by the left ankle and dragged him toward the west door.

  Long Clay looked at Stevie. “Put five iron stakes into the stove. Just the tips.”

  “Gladly.”

  Nathaniel’s skin tingled.

  Stevie opened a green crate that was beside the table, grabbed five stakes, set their points into the luminous amber interior of the potbelly stove and returned his right eye to the telescopic sight above the gunfighter’s rifle.

  Long Clay looked at Brent. “Strip these four naked.”

  “Okay.”

  Queasy, Nathaniel walked toward the door.

  “The dandy will help you.”

  A void opened up within the gentleman, and his vision narrowed.

  “C’mon.” Brent clasped Nathaniel’s right elbow, pulled him to the bound quartet, opened the toolbox, withdrew two pairs of steel shears (one of which had a curl of sheep’s wool in-between its heavy blades), knelt beside the captive who had earlier exclaimed, “¡Triunfo!” and clipped the jutting arrows.

  “Pull off his shoes and pants,” the cowboy said to his reluctant accomplice.

  Nathaniel got on his knees, grabbed the captive’s left boot, wrested it loose, claimed its sibling, undid four suspender tabs, unbuttoned the fellow’s waist band, clutched both hems and pulled. A brass compass and a monocle clinked upon the stone, and burgundy underclothes were revealed.

  Brent handed Nathaniel the second pair of shears. “Cut through his sleeves and then we can pull the whole thing off o’ him.” The men applied their flashing blades and rent three layers of clothing. “That’ll work.” The duo set down their shears and pulled the cleft jacket, shirt and union suit off of the unconscious Mexican. Emanating from the man’s naked body were the smells of blood and excrement.

  Stevie and Dolores furtively observed Brent.

  A spool of barbed wire dropped to the ground beside the captive’s feet. “Bind his ankles together,” ordered Long Clay.

  Nathaniel tasted cold dread.

  “Hold his head good and tight,” Brent said as he donned thick gloves, “so that he don’t break his skull.” The cowboy unwound two yards of wire and clipped it with his shears.

  Nathaniel leaned forward and braced the triumphant man’s head against the floor.

  Brent pulled the gleaming wire around the captive’s flush ankles, and four barbs pierced the skin. The triumphant man screamed. Throughout Nathaniel’s body, the sound of another man’s agony reverberated.

  Hastily, the cowboy pulled the line through four more circuits, twisted its ends secure, released the bound limbs and withdrew. The captive’s toes clutched the air like the webbed extremities of an amphibian.

  “Don’t kill me.” The Midwestern captive began to sob. “Please. I have two young daughters back—”

  Long Clay inserted a plum into the man’s mouth. “I’ll cut off your right hand if you spit that out.”

  No more pleas emerged from the Midwesterner.

  Brent pointed to the unconscious captive who had the handlebar mustache. “Let’s do him.”

  Myopically focusing his thoughts on each assigned task, Nathaniel nodded his head. He knelt. The cowboy clipped arrows, and the gentleman removed the unconscious fellow’s shoes, green trousers and long john bottoms. Both men cut away the captive’s jacket and blood-stained white shirt.

  “I know that one.” Dolores smoldered.

  Brent’s face darkened.

  Nathaniel leaned forward and braced the captive’s head.

  “Hold it firm.”

  The cowboy pulled barbed wire in a quick circuit, and the captive yelled. Nathaniel’s arms shook. Brent glanced at his sister and yanked the line. Barbs tore open the man’s shins and calves, and he shrieked.

  “Go easy for now,” cautioned Long Clay.

  Brent finished binding the man’s legs and dropped them to the floor, where they twitched and dripped blood. Nathaniel released the captive’s moaning head.

  Dolores hobbled over and struck the captive’s face with her crutch. “Disgusting!”

  Brent and Nathaniel stripped the bloody vaquero, who had been shot by four arrows. The man was dying and did not awaken when his feet were bound.

  Presently, the duo knelt beside the redheaded Midwesterner. The man whimpered when his trousers were removed, fell unconscious when his arrows were clipped and reawakened wh
en the remainder of his clothing was ripped from his body. Brent wrapped freckled ankles with barbed wire, and Nathaniel felt warm tears upon his palms.

  “Is the horizon clear?” asked Long Clay.

  “Yessir,” replied Stevie.

  “It’s clear,” Deep Lakes said from outside.

  Long Clay looked at Nathaniel and Brent. “Hang the captives from the stakes by their ankles.”

  Nathaniel’s skin grew cold.

  “Get ‘em by the feet and stay in front, so they can’t kick you,” Brent advised, as if he were discussing the best way to handle a roped steer. He grabbed the right big toe of the plump man with the handlebar mustache and dragged him across the floor, through the west door and out of view.

  Nathaniel similarly trailed his burden, the Midwesterner. The nude captive’s back and buttocks sizzled across the ground.

  “Wait until he comes back,” ordered Long Clay.

  Nathaniel paused, watched Brent and Deep Lakes walk past the southern crenellations and heard the creak of the stepladder, followed by a couple of grunts and a gurgling yell.

  Presently, the cowboy returned.

  Clasping a freckled foot, Nathaniel walked outside. Deep Lakes accompanied the lumbering and draggling Midwesterners through the vast night to the front of the fort.

  “Jesus Christ.” Nathaniel stared at previously hung captive, whose legs and inverted phallus were agleam with moonlit blood.

  “Climb the stepladder,” Deep Lakes said to the glassy-eyed gentleman. “I’ll hand him up to you.”

  Nathaniel narrowed his thoughts, ascended three rungs, received the legs of the Midwesterner and guided them toward the wall. An iron stake poked into the barbed wire, slid between the captive’s ankles and emerged on the near side of the metallic binding.

  Deep Lakes released the man’s torso.

  The inverted Midwesterner dropped. Wires snapped taut against the stake, and barbs revealed yellow tissue, pink muscle and white tendons. The captive shrieked, and the plum fell out of his mouth.

  Nathaniel tumbled from the stepladder and onto the ground. With shaking hands, he picked up the fallen fruit and—to silence the terrible wailing—reinserted it inside the Midwesterner’s mouth. Covered with sweat and shaking, the gentleman hastened back inside the fort.